


You Are The Air Inside My Lungs

by ConsultingCaffrey



Category: White Collar
Genre: I'm back from the dead to bring you this lil tidbit, I've saved the real h/c for chapter two
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 04:07:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9475052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConsultingCaffrey/pseuds/ConsultingCaffrey
Summary: Neal and Peter have been in many a tight situation. Not quite as tight as this...





	1. Trapped

**Author's Note:**

> Well I told a Tumblr anon that I'd have something done tonight. I had meant to do one of the requests I should have finished forever ago but looking at each, I knew I couldn't rush through any of them and they couldn't possibly be done the way I want in one night, so I'm starting off writing again with this little angst-ridden fic! I decided to just post this first chapter. There will probably only be two. But here it is! A bit short, but there were some unexpected interruptions so I had to cut the thing in half. Enjoy!

The first thing Peter noticed was that it was oddly difficult to breathe and what little air he did manage to get smelled like something burning, though he felt no heat, so at least he knew he wasn't in danger of fire.

The second thing he noticed, when he opened his eyes, was darkness. So thick, it scared him to think where he was that could be so dark. He tried to move, but his limbs seemed to be stuck in place, pain throbbing in them. Except for his right arm, which still had enough mobility to feel around to try to discern where he was.

He was alarmed to realize he wasn't alone. Someone was lying directly on top of him, face down, their head resting against his shoulder. It was rather uncomfortable, but Peter just poked at the person slightly, coughing when he tried to speak.

A low groan, and he instantly recognized Neal. He didn't know whether to be relieved or disheartened. Relieved because he had someone familiar here with him. Disheartened because that meant Neal was in danger too.

"Hey," he managed, feeling like his throat was lined with dust.

"Hey," Neal grunted back.

"You okay?" He couldn't help but notice that Neal wasn't making any effort to get off of him. He could be hurt.

But the reply he got sounded sarcastically chipper. "I'm fine. No, this is exactly how I wanted to spend my evening."

"Neal, I'm serious. I need to know if you're hurt."

"I'm fine, Peter," he said, softening his tone. He sounded okay, so Peter paid a little more attention to himself. His right arm was fine, as was his left. It was just stuck under Neal's weight. His legs were his real concern. They hurt pretty bad, but at the same time, they were numb. 

"Can you get off?" he asked.

He felt Neal shift slightly on top of him, but not much more than that before dust and dirt rained down on them, getting in Peter's eyes. "Yeah, I don't think so," Neal said. "I hardly have space to move."

"Where are we?" Peter asked with a questioning look even if Neal couldn't see it.

"You don't remember?"

"No. You do, I assume?"

"Yeah," Neal said, "We were investigating the old Madsen property."

Madsen. Their current case. Now it made sense, and Peter hummed. "Right... Foul play?"

"Are you talking about the place collapsing on us? Yeah, I'd say so. Somebody was definitely here not long before. We found footprints."

Peter felt silly for not remembering, but then again, he must have hit his head pretty hard. He reached up with his good hand to feel around, and there was a bit of dried blood on the back of his head, but nothing wet or sticky anymore. That was good.

He felt Neal shifting slightly again, but before he could ask what he was doing, there was a blinding light in his eyes and he hissed, squeezing them shut.

"Sorry," Neal apologized and the light dimmed a lot. Peter opened his eyes again to see him holding his phone. He turned the flashlight on and this time held it away from Peter's face. "There. Much better."

Now that they could see, Peter didn't feel much better about their situation. The crumbled walls around them were close, and he was alarmed to see the one above them so near to his face. No wonder Neal couldn't get off.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Peter asked.

"I'm fine," Neal insisted again. "Now what about you?" He didn't wait for Peter to reply, using the light to look his friend over for any injuries. The only thing was that he couldn't turn around to see his legs, which was where the real problem was. Peter tried to move them, but that only caused more pain and Neal berated him for it.

"Hey, that's my job."

"Well guess who's on top?" Neal smirked.

"You're only on top because you used me as a cushion," Peter huffed. "And I don't want to hear any more about it."

More dust sifted down, making them both cough.

"Dammit," Peter murmured, "How are we going to get out of here?"

"I'm sure they can just track my anklet," Neal said, "Diana's expecting a call from you, isn't she? When she doesn't hear from you soon, she'll know something's up."

"A call," Peter repeated. "Your phone. We can—"

"No service," Neal said, making a glum face. "Just our luck."

They really didn't have many options here except to wait it out. And that could get very boring very fast. Peter sighed. "Yeah, our luck seems to come and go as it pleases."

"That's generally what luck does," Neal hummed.

It was odd, to say the least, having a calm conversation while trapped beneath lord knew how much debris. And in such an awkward position.

Neal rested his head back against Peter's shoulder after a while, his neck getting tired. "I wish I'd brought some water."

Peter hummed in agreement. "Or a sandwich."

"Don't even go there. I can smell the deviled ham just by you thinking about it."

"What else am I gonna think about?"

"Your wife?" Neal suggested, a silent "duh" afterwards.

"Not while you're laying on top of me," Peter grumbled.

"Get your mind out of the gutter," Neal scolded.

"It wasn't there until you mentioned El!"

"Elizabeth makes you think dirty thoughts?" Neal teased, a grin in his voice so Peter knew without looking at him that he was at least having some fun.

"Stop that," Peter growled, though there was no bite to it.

They slipped into silence for a while longer, a silence that Neal eventually broke.

"Hey, Peter?"

"Yeah."

"If we don't get out of this..."

He didn't have to say anything. They both already knew, so Peter sighed again and said, "Yeah, same here."

"But we'll get out," Neal added after a second or two.

"Of course," Peter said. "We always do."

They always did...


	2. Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to have this done way earlier but I ended up having to take care of my mom after she had surgery so there wasn't much time to write. But here it is! It's got a bit of an abrupt end, but I got it right where I want it so I hope you guys enjoy it :)

Hours must have passed before Peter noticed that Neal was being awfully quiet. They had turned off the light from the phone to save battery in case they were down here a while, so he couldn't see anything that would tell him why.

"Hey," he said, nudging him a bit.

Neal hummed in reply. "Yeah, Peter?"

"You sure you're okay? You're not saying much."

"I fell asleep." After the short silence that followed the statement, he added, "What? You're really comfy. And there's nothing better to do. Besides, I didn't get much sleep last night."

"Why not?"

He felt Neal shrug. "I just didn't."

Peter left it at that. Although he was curious, the pain in his legs was distracting enough that he didn't care to ask. "You can go back to sleep," he said. "Help may not come for a while."

"Yeah," Neal said, though he didn't go to sleep. Instead, he asked, "How are your legs?"

"Okay, I think," Peter said. "They might be bleeding."

"That's no good," Neal hummed, a frown evident in his voice. "Hang on." He turned the phone back on and tried to move again. There was a little space to Peter's left and he tried to slide that way, wincing as he did. Dirt rained down on them again, and Peter shut his eyes tightly against it, coughing some more.

But as before, Neal could barely make it an inch before stopping. "Ugh... Sorry."

"It's fine," Peter said. "It probably feels worse than it actually is."

Neal turned off the phone again. "You're bleeding. That's not exactly a good thing."

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it now," Peter sighed. "Not until someone gets us out of here."

Neal rested his head against Peter's shoulder again. "Until then, I suppose we just sit tight."

"Really tight," Peter mumbled. He couldn't help but notice it was getting slightly harder to breathe, and he began to worry about how much oxygen they actually had access to. Neither of them had thought about that yet.

"I'd kill for that rebreather," Neal said, apparently realizing the same thing.

"Would you share it this time?" Peter asked jokingly.

"Yeah," Neal said. "We're not looking for a hidden override button or anything like that. I think it would be wise."

But they didn't have a rebreather. It didn't matter. They'd just have to try not to waste the air they had left. Peter understood the gravity of the situation, but there was nothing he could do about it, and that made him feel powerless. He'd never liked that. He'd always been one for fixing things, being able to work through problems with his hands. Here, that wasn't an option.

They remained there in silence, Neal on top of Peter, seemingly asleep again, and Peter unable to stop thinking about oxygen and how much of it they had left.

It could only have been a few minutes before a sound came to his attention and at first, he thought Neal was mumbling quietly in his sleep, so he nudged him a bit. "Hey, cut that out." The words left him surprisingly breathless.

"What?" Neal questioned, lifting his head. He didn't sound like he'd been asleep, so maybe he hadn't.

"You were making noise," Peter started, but then he heard it again, obviously not coming from Neal. But it was definitely a voice, very faint. Multiple voices.

"Do you hear what I'm hearing?" Neal asked, a grin evident in his voice. 

"Could be the team," Peter said. "Or..."

"It could be somebody else," Neal finished, coming to the same conclusion. "Great. So what do we do?"

"We need to get out of here," Peter said. "We won't last much longer no matter who it is."

"So we yell out to them, and whoever it is, we deal with it," Neal said, and Peter nodded. "Here goes nothing."

He took a breath, then shouted out as loudly as he could, hopefully drawing attention to where they were. Neal did the same, and then the voices they had heard before got a little louder. One rang out above the rest, sounding muffled, but it was clearly Diana. Peter relaxed instantly. "Thank God..."

"Hang on!" they heard her call down to them.

"Take your time!" Neal replied. No need for them to go too quickly and accidentally bring the rest of the place down on them.

"Well," Neal said, "This was some great bonding time, but I don't think Elizabeth would approve."

Peter chuckled. "She's going to love hearing about this one."

They both stiffened as more dust and dirt crumbled around them and Neal coughed at the same time as Peter did. "Yeah, let's just hope we live to tell her all about it."

Luckily, it seemed that the team were being careful, and after just a few more minutes, there was light and Peter squinted against it. He felt Neal's weight disappear, and then strong hands were pulling him up gently.

"Gotcha," Jones said, letting Peter lean on him while another agent did the same with Neal. 

There was blood on both of them and Peter grimaced, looking down at his legs. He was able to stand up okay, so he didn't think anything was broken. That was good. But he was even more surprised when Jones sat him down and took a look, revealing just a lot of bad bruising. No cuts or gashes anywhere. So then...

He looked over at Neal, still with his arm around Agent Ryan. "What are you looking at me like that for?" Neal questioned.

"I'm not the one who's been bleeding," Peter said. "Why didn't you say anything, Neal?!"

Neal blinked, then looked down at himself, puzzled. "What? Oh..." He only just realized that there was a tear in his pants just above the knee on his left leg. A short cut was visible there, not bleeding anymore, but still...

"I didn't even notice," Neal said, looking back at Peter.

"I bet you're noticing now," Diana said. "Come on. Let's get you two checked out properly."

"I need to call El," Peter said. Now that he was finally able to reach the phone in his pocket, he realized it would have been no good anyway. The screen was shattered.

"Call her on the way," Jones said, helping him to his feet again.

Elizabeth was happy to hear he was okay. This was the first she was learning of the incident, so she didn't have to worry too much. They had already been found. Still, Peter knew she would until she saw for herself that they were both okay. She promised to meet them at the hospital as soon as possible.

Neal smiled over at him after he hung up. "Feeling better already, Agent Burke?"

Peter smiled back. "Much. Although I'll most likely be banned from going near any unstable structures for a month."

"Probably for the best."

They endured the torment of the hospital begrudgingly, even Peter, who kept insisting he was fine. He didn't even have a concussion. Neal was okay too. The cut on his leg wasn't serious, and he didn't have any other injuries to speak of.

Elizabeth was a godsend and a curse at the same time. Peter and Neal both appreciated her presence. Anything to focus on besides the sterile smell of the hospital (which they'd both been discussing with sour faces). But she was also a whirlwind of motherly instincts with two boys freshly cleared to leave.

"Neal, do you really think you should be home alone?" she asked as they walked out together.

"I'm fine," he said. "This is nowhere near as bad as that time I got shot, and I was okay by myself then. Trust me, I think Peter got it worse than me."

"You did land on me," Peter grumbled.

"And then stayed there for... what, two hours?" Neal added.

"Two and a half," Elizabeth said. "By Clinton's estimate."

"I'll never get over the fact that his name is Clinton," Neal said under his breath.

"At least stay for lunch," Elizabeth said, apparently not giving up quite yet, and who was Neal to say no to her twice in a row?

"Alright, lunch sounds good," he said. "Peter can regale to you our misadventure."

"Why don't you regale it?" Peter asked. "You're the storyteller."

Neal side-eyed him with a slight smile. "I'm going to take that as a compliment, despite what I'm pretty sure you intended it to be."

Elizabeth smiled and walked them out to where she'd parked the car. "No bickering at the dinner table."


End file.
